Nauvooooo!

This trip has been a long time coming in my family and we were so happy that after 4 years of being married, we could finally go on the annual family trip! Here's the run-down.
Friday:
*We woke up at 4 am and got on the road by 5.
*Passed through Star Valley, the place where my Grandma Hinckley was born and raised, and I got all emotional.
*We learned that after Star Valley, Wyoming is probably one of the most boring states to drive through in the entire U.S. Sorry to any of you WY natives. We saw the place where trailer homes go to die and followed a huge truck that carried only pig's blood in it. Ugh, Wyoming.
*Nebraska was refreshing with it's tree filled landscapes and classic American scenery like red barns and milk cows grazing. We drove until about midnight and arrived in Omaha, found the closest hotel and shelled out more money than we should have to sleep in a bed and use a shower and toilet.

Miles thought this bear was real. There seemed to be a lot of parks on the way with trains. When we grabbed Miles in the morning we didn't put shoes on him. They were packed away on top of the car, so he was barefoot at all of the parks etc. We are such mean parents.



Saturday and Sunday:
*Richie took Miles swimming in the hotel pool and Miles fell in love.
*Drove to Council Bluffs and tried to find Winter Quarters. Got lost and frustrated after being in the car for so long, and gave up trying to find it. Headed to Ames Iowa.
*Ames gets a thumbs up, we liked it. Met up with some family there and stayed with my bro and his family and had those all to often thoughts of "Will we ever have a house? Will we ever be able to afford _______?"
*Miles makes friends with his cousins Izzy and Theo and takes over Theo's train set and Woody Doll.
*Did the whole church thing.






Monday:
*The last leg of the trip to Nauvoo begins, and on the way we stop in Iowa at the "American Gothic" house and take some sweet pictures.
*Settle in to our temporary home, the Hyrum Smith farmhouse, meet up with the rest of the fam, and have an awesome FHE learning about our Ancestors who were part of Nauvoo.
*Both Monday and Tuesday night were full of thunder and lightning storms all night. Miles was scared of them and I secretly loved pulling him in bed with us to comfort him.






Tuesday:
*Because of the thunder and lightening, the power was out Tuesday morning, which resulted in a shower in the dark and wet hair to go to the temple with.
*Did a session in the Nauvoo temple with my mom and dad, all of my brothers and sisters and all of their spouses. Pretty cool. The Nauvoo temple is incredibly beautiful.
*Toured a few houses in historic Nauvoo
*Got some good reading in, played at a park with Miles, and Richie played "ball" with the boys.
*Miles made friends with more cousins playing in the hot tub.








Wednesday:
*Richie went with all the other priesthood holders and helped do baptisms at the temple for the older cousins.
*We visited the Carthage jail where Jospeh and Hyrum were slain.
*While trying to explain to Miles what happened there, he must have gotten confused and kept saying, "Jee Cry" (Jesus Christ). Once he understood we weren't talking about Jesus and that we were talking about Joseph Smith, is turned into "Jo Emis" :)
*We walked the trail of hope down Parley Street, the same steps the saints took when they were pushed out of the city and had a family testimony meeting near the banks of the Mississippi River.
*What would any trip be without some frisbee golf? Richie managed to cram some of that in.






Thursday:
*Toured a few more spots in historic Nauvoo and then hit the road!
*Found a hotel somewhere in Nebraska and paid a little less for the convenience of a bed, toilet and shower.





Friday:
*The home stretch! Once again, Wyoming was disappointing, but we did stop at a gas station that gave us a free ice cream cone just for filling up!



In case you were doing the math at home, we spent a total of 52 hours in the car, minimum, this trip. The van has officially been broken in. I was impressed with how well the kids traveled, how well the van ran and how un-humid it turned out to be in the mid-west. All in all, it was one fantastic trip!

This past weekend...

*We welcomed home Richie's brother Ross from his mission in Armenia! He's just as awesome as we remember him to be, probably more so :), and it was so fun to be a part of that.

*We blessed sweet baby Gwen! That's always such a tender moment for me to see my child surrounded by so many worthy priesthood holders. She hadn't pooped for 4 days before the blessing, so we were a bit worried for the safety and cleanliness of her blessing dress, but luckily we made it through without any blowouts! Speaking of Gwen, we took her to her 2 month appointment yesterday and she is 13lbs 6 oz (95%) 24 inches (95%) and I can't remember exact head circumference, but she's in the 97th percentile there. :) What can I say, we make big babies!



*We got some family pictures taken by Richie's aunt Sheree. Didn't she do a great job? All the pictures I'm posting here, she took. I can't seem to locate my camera. Hers are better anyway.

Tis the season

We've been on a brief hiatus from the internet recently, and although it was only for a few days, I feel like it's been a lifetime and there's so much to catch up on. Really, there's not, but do scroll down in case I decide to make enough nothings into somethings for another post.

Eastern Idaho is a little later on the gardening schedule than most other places, but we've finally been able to start our garden again. We're sharing the garden with the same friends as last year and we're excited to try some new things. Has anyone ever successfully grown eggplant? hmmmm... We were also excited to find out that we were allowed to use one of the planter boxes out in front of our house! We were going to use it to plant some extra peppers and tomatoes, but after we cleared away the ridiculous amount of weeds and grass that had taken over, we found a substantial amount of strawberry and raspberry plants! Score! Hopefully they'll produce and we'll be able to enjoy some of my favorites this season.

Perfection in fifteen pounds or less

I double dare you to find something cuter than this girl in 15 pounds or less. :) We were actually a little shocked the other day when we unofficially weighed her and she's between 13-14 pounds! That's nearly a pound a week since she was born! Straight cream I tell ya! Gwen is one content baby. She is consistently sleeping at least one 5 hour stretch at night, although every so often, the Heavens smile on us and she'll have a miraculous 9 hour stretch. Every so often means twice, I think, and it fakes us out every time. We think sleeping through the night is finally going to happen, and the next night it's back to multiple feedings. I guess we'll take what we can get. I'm lovin this little girl.

Brotherly Love

Miles is one good brother! I'm still breathing a sigh of relief about this I think. The only reason I have to worry about leaving them in a room alone together is if Miles decides to cuddle her too much and ends up lying on top of her tummy. :) He always wants cuddles and kisses from his baby Gwen. My favorite is when they're riding in the stroller and he reaches over to grab her hand! He helps by throwing away her diapers and bringing her some of his toys to share. Notice the yarn draped around the mobile that Gwen is laying under. Compliments of a very thoughtful Miles.

In the Raw

(After I published this post, I got to thinking that "in the raw" perhaps refers to naked-ness....I did not mean it that way. I meant it only to say that the state of our apartment as viewed in these pictures is without touch-up, without cleaning up before hand etc. I assure you, there is only partial baby nudity in this post :) Carry on.)
I've been waiting to post pictures of our apartment until I had everything where I wanted it and until it was clean enough to take pictures that I would feel comfortable posting, lest you all discover how messy our house usually is. But I thought today that if I waited until both of those requirements coincided, you may never see the apartment! So here it is, in all it's glory, our spacious 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment. Let me preface these by saying that I took these this morning after a night of throwing up, croupy coughs and regular middle-of-the night feedings, so I promise it's not actually always this messy. Well, maybe it is... And to be honest, the bedroom picture was taken on Saturday when the house was clean. If I was being totally truthful and had taken the picture this morning, you would see a very messy, un-made bed. Ok, there you go.







It's an old house and so it's full of all those fun quirks like built in shelves and drawers in odd places and creaky floors all over. For some reason the way it smells and the way the sink sounds reminds me of my grandma's house, so I liked it right off. :) The only downside to this apartment (aside from having to pay rent now) is that there is no laundry in our apartment. There's a little laundromat on-site that we share with a bunch of other apartments. I forgot what a pain it is. Yesterday I paid over $3 for one load of laundry because the drier wasn't working well enough! We love being closer to civilization, living across from the park and our ward seems good. They have some big shoes to fill, seeing as we loved our old ward so much, but it's what you make it right!? Oh, and just so the entire world knows, Richie got accepted to student teach this fall! We're not sure where yet, but it's somewhere close in the area. We're so excited/relieved!! We're one step closer! It also means we'll be here until at least January, so we won't have to move until then at least which is nice to know.

I couldn't help it...I fought it this entire post, but I must publish this picture, sorry sweetheart. :) I get to go to the gym most evenings and Richie watches the kiddos. What a guy right? A few times, I've come home and found this! It just cracks me up and makes me smile. Also, did you know they have soap paint for the bathtub?? It's made by crayola and I got some the other day. It's so fun!!